Rob LeFebvre - page 82

It’s generally super easy to get notes into Evernote, using the desktop client, the mobile client, and even the web client. There are a ton of different apps on Mac and iOS that will let you interface with Evernote, like Penultimate on the iPad or Reeder on the Mac.

But did you know that you could send emails along to Evernote, too? If you’re swiping through emails on your iPhone, or scrolling through them on your Mac, you can quickly forward important ones to your Evernote account, for later follow up or archiving. Here’s how.

With iOS 5, Apple included Emoji as a standard keyboard option, obviating the need for separate Emoji apps (previously the only way to get the cute characters on your iOS device). The Emoji option continued in iOS 6, adding a bunch of new cute characters, as well as some welcome gay and lesbian avatars as well.

If you haven’t enabled Emoji yet, or you want to disable it for whatever reason, read on.

I use Evernote for almost everything these days, including clipping websites to research these daily OS X Tips, writing grocery lists on my Mac and then using my iPhone at the store, and scanning important printed documents to organize digitally.

Did you know, however, that Evernote will also allow you to share notes? It’s fairly easy, and here’s how.

The Steve Jobs biographical film,”jobs,” starring Ashton Kutcher, has been delayed. Originally set for an April 19th release, the distributor, Open Road, feels like it hasn’t been able to create enough buzz for the flick before this date.

There’s no new release date announced, either, though it’s fairly atypical for a distribution house not to set a new one when the orignal date is delayed. We can only assume that Open Road will want to avoid the Aaron Sorkin film on the same subject, not wanting to go up against The Social Network screenwriter, no matter how much star power they hoped Kutcher would bring to the project.

A lot of us use our USB thumb-drives (flash drives, data sticks, whatever you call them) as little repositories for our daily document work. We keep Word docs, text files, photos, and other daily data ephemera on the small four to eight gigabyte drives, making it easy to shuttle stuff between computers at work, home, and on the go.

But what happens when that little drive stops working, or gets lost? That’s where Flash Drive Backup, a five dollar investment, can come in handy.

3D Realms (Max Payne, Duke Nukem) and Intercepter Entertainment (Rise of the Triad) announced today the upcoming release of Duke Nukem II for iOS. Coming in April 2013, Duke Nukem II lets you guide a 2D Duke of mayhem across 32 classic levels from the original game, blowing the crap out of everything that gets in the way.

Battery life in the iPhone age, right? It’s a conundrum we’ve all had to adjust our behaviors for. Before the iPhone, I can remember going days, maybe even a week or so in between battery charges. The advent of an iPhone in my life brought with it a new behavior – charging it every night. I use my iPhone for almost everything these days, including getting around town, communicating with loved ones, and checking email while out and about, so it makes sense that the battery drains quickly.

There are a few third-party apps out there that keep track of your battery usage for you. Turns out, though, if you just want a quick looksee at how much life you have left in your iPhone or iPad’s battery, you can look in the iOS Settings app itself.

Remember the days pre-OS X, when you could hit the Spacebar on your keyboard as your Mac started up, giving you access to the Extensions Manager? Man, I surely do not miss those days. Startup items are now called Login Items, and they just happen, right?

OS X really doesn’t give us much choice in how these apps and features that we blissfully add to our Macs launch on startup, though, does it. If you want to have some control over the Login Items, check out this free little app, Exhaust.

You may have figured that the rhythm game genre was finished, what with nary a Rockband, Tap Tap Revenge, or Guitar Hero game to grace the App Store in recent months.

You’d have figured wrong, at least as far as the devs behind updated iOS game, Duck & Roll, are concerned. WildFactor released Duck and Roll last November at a premium price. We can only assume that after several price drops and price increases, they weren’t finding much success.

Luckily, free games can attract an audience. Even more luckily, this one is pretty darn fun.

ActoTracker is a free Mac app that automatically tracks all of the activity on your Mac. You might show up at the office on Wednesday having completely forgotten what you were working on Monday. You might wonder what specific website you went to while researching that lit paper, and not have a record of the history stored in your browser. With ActoTracker, you can pull up this kind of information, and much more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=BcsXkj88-KQ#!

The Homeworld series, launched in 1999 by Relic Entertainment and Sierra Entertainment, is considered by many to be the birth of the modern 3D real time strategy game. Homeworld: Cataclysm was released the following year, with Homeworld 2 following in 2003.

Today, development house teamPixel wants to license the Homeworld franchise, liberating it from the THQ bankruptcy, and create two new games: Homeworld Touch, a remake of the Homeworld game with a new, modern, touchscreen interface for iOS and Andriod, and Homeworld 3 for Mac and PC, to extend the game to new frontiers and new audiences. They’d also like to bring the older, legacy Homeworld games to Steam and Good Old Games. All they need is your support with their Kickstarter project.

The Blockheads is a fantastic iOS game that captures so much of the Minecraft experience, it’s a must play for any but the most jaded of iOS gamers.

It updated today, with all sorts of great stuff. You can now warp in up to four players, twice the two previously available. My kids and I are gonna have a ton of fun with this one. You can find fish in the sea, craft a fishing rod to catch them, and hopefully not get eaten by sharks there, either. Also, there’s a way to make tin foil, which lets you roast those fish on a campfire, canceling out the most hunger possible in game. Or, you know, make a tin foil hat.

Ok, so it’s not a life-changer, but the Apple Store app has just been updated to version 2.5. There are now new delivery options available in the app, and you can choose different shipping options for each different item in an order. Want your iPad smart case shipped to your office, your iPhone charger to your home, and pick up your iPad mini at the local Apple Store? You can arrange for that now in the app itself.

There’s a new section in the Express Checkout screen, too, which lets you know whether a purchase will be available for pickup at the nearest Apple Store, at least for US customers.

Every time I’ve used the Apple Store App, whether to purchase an item in store or order it ahead of time, I’ve been impressed by the seamlessness of the transaction. It’s like having a better, more portable Apple Store website on my phone, and it makes it easy to make Genius Bar or workshop reservations at my local store. The app allows you to purchase and pick up products from the store, personalize iPads and iPods with engraving, choose gift-wrapping options, configure new Mac purchases, and track your stuff once you’ve bought it.

And? It’s really a ton of fun to walk into the store, scan an item, type in my iTunes password, and walk out with that item. Feels all sneaky. I also like that just showing up with my iPhone and a reservation for a Specialist notifies them and me. It’s just plain cool.

What’s New in Version 2.5
– New delivery options make it even more convenient to get your Apple products. Choose different shipping options for different items in an order.
– An even easier way to see if the product you want is available for pickup at your favorite Apple Retail Store (U.S. only).

Source: App Store

What can Apple bring to the table, er, wrist, that Timex and any one of hundreds of cheap watches don’t already provide consumers?

That’s the question Harvard Business Review’s H. James Wilson asks today, and he comes up with a fascinating answer.

The iWatch, he says, won’t actually be a watch at all.

The default Notification Center sound, Basso, is not one that makes me very happy. It kind of sounds like a frog fart, to be honest. Why an operating system that’s had the ability to switch alert sounds since at least OS 7 doesn’t have that option here is beyond me, but there is a way to change it.

Here’s how.

Chief investment officer of Gamco Investors, Howard Ward, today said that Apple is planning to reveal its plans for what to do with the enormous amount of cash by next month. Apple needs to respond to growing criticism over what it’s doing with its $137.1 billion in cash and investments, not to mention the $42 billion in earnings investors expect Apple to add in 2013, says Ward.

I use Freshbooks on the web all the time to send out invoices and request payment for various writing and freelance jobs I have. It allows me to create invoices, send them, and have people respond to me as if I have a real business with real invoices. It’s pretty slick. Other features include time tracking, project management, estimates, and expense tracking.

Now, there’s an iOS app that lets you do the same things, right from your iPhone.

Ever needed a way to use your iPhone to control your iPad camera, or vice versa? No? How about using your iPod touch as a baby monitor, with an iPad upstairs to monitor your baby’s nap time? Or keeping an eye on a pet in the other room with your iPhone? You might want to take a picture with your iPhone on a tripod, to get a large group of people in the shot, because let’s face it, no one’s arm is that long.

With Blux Lens, a remote for Blux Camera, you can do just that. Here’s how.

For some reason probably having to do with design or layout, Apple’s spreadsheet program, Numbers, can split large tables in some less-than-ideal ways when printing. They can be split up, down, and across multiple pages.

If you want to print it all on one page, however, there’s another way: use Preview. Here’s how.

Sometimes, when Friday rolls around, it’s all we can do to relax. I like to play games on my iPhone and iPad to chill a bit at the end of a long work week. Today, I spent some time with brain-teasing puzzle game, Sporos. It’s got a gentle vibe, calming electronica music, and a ton of challenging puzzles to keep your brain meats engaged and your anxiety level low. I’m enjoying it, and you just might, too.

Well, you know a meme is winding down in “cool factor” when developers start creating videos like this one. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as the following video of iOS development objects and assets do the Harlem Shake, like any number of thousands of videos on YouTube.

We’ve provided a couple of tips to help you prevent your Mac from going to sleep when you don’t want to, from a time-based app called Sleep No More to some Terminal magic that can do something similar. Unfortunately, both solutions are based on time. What if you want to keep your Mac from sleeping while it’s running a specific app, no matter how long it takes?

Free Mac app, Wimoweh, may be your answer. Check it out.

In-Flight Wi-Fi service, Gogo, released some numbers today on their blog, showing that Apple devices are still the most popular way passengers are accessing the internet via the service while flying above 10,000 feet.

Tablets and smartphones, according to Gogo, make up 67 percent of the devices used to connect to the Wi-Fi service on airplanes. Tablets themselves are the most popular, with 35 percent, closely followed by 33 percent of folks using laptops and 32 percent using smartphones for their mile-high internet surfing sessions.

It gets even more interesting when you break down which tablets and smartphones are being used.

John C Dvorak, Leo Laporte, and a couple of other folks involved in This Week in Tech (TwiT) had a meeting together at the Apple campus at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino this past Monday, and they ended up having an informal battle of the navigation apps in the three cars they were each driving. TWiT CEO Lisa Kentzell and marketing guy Glenn Rubenstein were in one car, using Apple Maps, while Laporte was using Waze, Dvorak using Google Maps.

Dvorak wrote the story up over at PC Magazine, and claims that Apple Maps got the TWiT folks to the Apple campus faster than either Waze, which came in dead last, or Google Maps. We can count on this being the truth of their experience, as anyone of Dvorak’s stature might have a hard time admitting that he lost a race.

The interface designer behind the Auxo app-switcher concept (@Sentry_NC) has come up with another fantastic idea, this time aiming his attention at the Lock Screen of iOS. In this new concept, iPhone and iPad users would be able to swipe over from the right hand side of their device screen, revealing a host of settings that typically require launching the Settings app for.

I sure hope Apple implements something similar.